364. ODOROGRAPHIA. 
flowering condition and one acre of young cuttings. In the 
autumn of the fifth year, acre No. 1 can be cleaned, the old 
plants stacked in heaps and burned, and the ashes distributed 
over the land. This acre can then be ploughed, manured, and 
cross-ploughed, and left fallow till the next May, when it can 
be stocked with young plants out of No. 5, and there will still 
be enough young plants to plant two or three more acres, and 
sO on. 
The harvest depends upon the season: white frosts in May 
retard the growth (especially of plants near overhanging trees), 
but black frosts do not injure them so much. As a general rule 
the harvest may commence the first week of August if the weather 
be dry. The cutting commences as early as possible in the 
morning, before the dew is off. Flowers so cut seem to yield 
more oil than those cut in the heat of the day; but the necessity 
of getting the whole crop cut quickly, when once ripe and ready, 
requires cutting to go on all day long, unless many men be em- 
ployed. In wet weather it is better not to cut at all. If the days 
are bright and hot during June and July, the yield will be better 
in quality and quantity than if wet and dull. There are some- 
times seasons of unusual heat and drought; I have then noticed 
a smaller quantity yielded, but an infinitely superior quality. 
Such may be termed “ comet ” years, as in wine; and the oil of 
such years is sold on date accordingly, at a higher price than the 
ordinary. There are also years of unusual rainfall, such as 1887 ; 
the quality of the oil of such years is poor, and plants are apt to 
become diseased through excessive moisture. 
In taking the crop, the entire length of flower-stalk should be 
cut away from the pliant, but as little of the stalk as possible 
should be put into the still. It pays the time and labour of the 
distiller to cut away a great deal of this length of stalk, which would 
otherwise only fill up the still with useless material, and the still 
will hold quite four times as much flower when this is done. The 
flower should be put into the still as soon as possible to prevent 
fermentation and loss of oil by evaporation ; and until it is so put 
in, it should not be allowed to lie in the sun. 
Different materials require different methods of distillation, 
partly by reason of difficulty or facility which the oil finds in 
escaping from the glands or ducts which contain it; partly by 
reason of the higher or lower boiling-point of the oil, also taking 
